Plays On Word Radio

Ep 141: Passing Faith Forward - Love Letters, Legacy, and the Healing Power of Family Communication

• Pastor/ Artist Fred Kenney Jr. • Season 3 • Episode 141

Share episode

Send us a text

"Whether you’re a grandparent, a parent still learning to speak your heart, or a mentor to kids who see you as family, this conversation gives you tools to capture meaning in ink and pass it forward with grace."

We share how simple “love letters” can carry faith, values and identity across generations, and why churches can turn this practice into a culture of healing communication. Pastor Mike Morgan, of Shiloh Baptist Church, and Louise Cole, of Family Legacy Connect, show practical ways to write, store and share letters that become mirrors and anchors for family.

• love letters as a tangible family legacy
• grandparents, parents and mentors as mirrors of identity
• communication as healing, forgiveness and relief
• stories as carriers of values and faith
• church vision to “empower family” quarterly
• practical rhythms for writing, saving and gifting letters
• integrating Scripture and testimony without performance
• honoring ancestors and documenting prayer-filled history

To find out how to bring "Love Letters" to your church/ community or learn how to future-proof your legacy, please contact Louise Cole:
• https://www.familylegacyconnect.com/contact or
• Louise@familylegacyconnect.com

Love Letters: https://www.familylegacyconnect.com/loveletters
Family Legacy Connect: https://www.familylegacyconnect.com/

Plays On Word Newsletter Sign Up: https://playsonword.dm.networkforgood.com/forms/newsletter-sign-up
Does any of today's podcast resonate with you?Let us know here: https://playsonword.dm.networkforgood.com/forms/podcast-reviews
To Support Plays On Word Radio & Plays On Word Theater, please visit: https://playsonword.networkforgood
The Plays on Word Theater team is always setting up new performance dates! If you want us to visit your church/venue/community, please reach out with your inquiries here: https://playsonword.dm.networkforgood.com/forms/event-submission-form

Plays On Word website
Plays On Word YouTube
Plays On Word Facebook
Plays On Word Instagram
Email us: team@playsonword.org

SPEAKER_04:

Lord, you know. You're now listening to play one is the best.

SPEAKER_01:

It's absolutely brilliant. She gets a card and writes it, ships it off to her kids, but keeps a copy for herself, puts it in a file with the child's name. What is that gonna do? Really nothing until she's gone. And then the kids get to go through all her stuff. And in that, you see a card with mom's handwriting of when I was 20, when I was 21, 22, 23. That's gonna be amazing.

SPEAKER_00:

Thank you for joining us on this excursion today. Let's join Pastor Teddy, also known as Fred David Kenny Jr., the founder of Plays on Word Theater, as he does a deep dive into the Word of God.

SPEAKER_03:

Amen, amen, amen, amen. Welcome to all of you to Plays on Word Radio. My name is Fred David Kenny Jr. Thank you very much for checking us out. Thank you, Katie Kenney and Josh Taylor, for the introduction. Hey, today we are having a conversation with the Reverend Mike Morgan of Shiloh Baptist Church and our dear sister Louise Cole. And we're just having a uh conversation about a ministry that the Lord has put on Louise's heart.

unknown:

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_03:

About family legacy, um love letters. And it's a cool conversation. Check it out. Reverend Mike, how are you, man?

SPEAKER_05:

Brother, listen, when you have Jesus, uh there's always a green light, my man.

SPEAKER_03:

Amen. Amen. Amen to that.

SPEAKER_05:

And if there's if there's a red light, you trust it. Just just stay put. You know what I mean?

SPEAKER_03:

Okay. All right. Well, uh, we are here with the good Reverend Mike Morgan from Shiloh Baptist Church, Matasquad, New Jersey. And we are also joined with uh oh, Katie Kenny's joining us. Look at this. Katie Kenny. Katie Kenny is joining us. Oh let me, yeah, right? Let me tell me something.

SPEAKER_05:

I would I would have dressed differently, man, if I'd have known that.

SPEAKER_03:

And uh we're we're also here with um Louise Cole. Interestingly enough, both of you guys are plays-on-word uh supporters from way back, long time plays-on-word supporters. And I just wanted to there was an event at Shiloh Baptist that I talked about on the podcast recently. It was an event where Louise went out to Shiloh and basically presented some information before we talk to you, Louise, about getting into the nitty-gritty of of what what you were speaking about. Reverend Mike, what do you have any thoughts on what was presented from from your perspective?

SPEAKER_05:

You know, I think of Proverbs 29 when he, you know, without vision, you know, the people perish. And uh the first time I sat down with Louise and she was discussing her ministry, um, I mentioned uh a young girl, a young mother in our church and her predicament. And uh Louise's response was like, whoa, like, okay, God's doing something there with her, and this needs to be extended. You know what I mean? So the the reaction from the people, it was just vision, it was something different, it wasn't repetitious, it wasn't the same oh, it was something that opened our eyes to a new way of communicating with family that brings relief, healing. Um, everybody, we left it with a different perspective. To be honest with you, we're gonna now have a quarterly uh serve uh Saturday time of fellowship. We're calling it empowering family. And uh we're gonna continue this family legacy. We're just gonna add one word to it, the word communication. Um, you know, because you know, I uh what I took from it for me was, you know, I never really got to extend to my dad my my appreciation for him and what he meant to me. You know what I mean? And um it's just it's about leaving a legacy, but it's also about, you know, um communicating. And um that would have meant a lot to him. So, you know, uh I planned to go to his grave site, Father's Day, and I'm gonna put together a letter. This was also uh Louise's idea. But it's just it was just just it just generated a whole new uh way of thinking about family and what we're doing to contribute to the family. Um it was just a blessing.

SPEAKER_03:

Amen. You know, that's one thing I appreciate, Aid, about you is that for some reason you're able to see vision better than most pastors I know. You're able to identify vision because you know, as a pastor, you get you get a million different people coming up to you saying, Oh, here's a great idea for you to run with, and here's a good time, though. Uh uh, God gave me a great ministry for you to do. Um but what I what I like when I when I stepped to you about plays on word, before we had the name plays on word, you were the first guy. But next to Katie, you were the first person. I said, I gotta talk to Mike about this. Man, I don't even know what this is. And the first thing you said, you said, brother, sounds like vision. Yes, Lord. Oh man, but uh, so that I really appreciate, man. I have I uh you know, because the the kingdom of God, man, and the body of Christ, how much vision has been stifled?

SPEAKER_05:

Come on, sir.

SPEAKER_03:

Yes, you know, the Lord deposit is deposits a vision for something with someone, they go to the pastor and get smacked down because it's not XYZ run of the mill.

SPEAKER_05:

Right.

SPEAKER_03:

You know, and and and and as you know, if if that was the case, a lot of ministry probably would not have to. You go back the last 2,000 years. I mean, I'm sure Timothy went went up to Paul and was like, Paul, you know, uh, I have an idea for some things going on at Ephesus, you know, and I don't think I don't think Paul smacked him down.

SPEAKER_05:

That's right, brother.

SPEAKER_03:

He was like, Well, if it's of God, yes, you know, then it's gonna roll. Let it roll.

SPEAKER_05:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03:

So, yeah, I just wanted to, I wanted to personally thank you for that because you know, we are we are living now in part because of your giving uh a vision a chance. You know, be it just being open to open to well, maybe this is of God. If it's not of God, then whatever, man. But but you know, if it is of God, hey, I can I can get down with that. So, you know, and uh I'm I'm blessed, you know. I that's one of the reasons why I I told Louise, I said, you know, you you should reach out to Brother Mike, you know, and share with him the idea. So hello to you, Louise Cole. I didn't even get a chance to, we didn't get a chance to hear your voice.

SPEAKER_01:

Fine with me.

SPEAKER_03:

Okay. Yeah. Um can you give us a uh a basic idea of uh what you presented to Mike and then what you presented to the fellowship over there at Shiloh?

SPEAKER_01:

Well, the the conversation with Mike was just what he said. We were having breakfast, the four of us, um, Joanne and and Bill and Mike and I, and he talked about this woman, and I just said, here's what I would I would do for her. You know, I would write a letter telling my daughter exactly what I wanted to say. You know, um, I would do it in the forward. You know, if she were going on a first date, what would I tell her if I wasn't there? What would I want her to know? And that's what I would write so that she knows it. But the the most important thing is I would be the mirror for her. The mirror. Here's who you are, here's how I see you. This is the most important thing about you. And don't listen to your peers or anyone else that tells you because that's a squiggly mirror. That's not a real mirror. This is the real mirror. Mirror that you look into in the bathroom. This is who you are, this is how I see you. You're smart, you're loving, you've uh communication, you have a great sense of humor. This is who you are. Okay, you're a writer, you're a you're a whatever I see in you when I see you. Because many times we go through life and we have no idea who we are. So we believe our peers, we're too fat, we're not pretty, we're this, we're that, and that's not who we really are. So grandparents need to step up into that role and say, this is who you are, this is how I see you, and this is the value of who you are.

SPEAKER_02:

No, I just was wondering. So, how does the program work around that concept?

SPEAKER_05:

From the time that we sat down and had breakfast together, the Holy Spirit has been kind of evolving this thing. He's been kind of shaping it from where from the beginning process, you know. And so what I took from, and again, Louise has to pray about this, but there was so much that I took from uh Saturday that I think we're gonna structure as it relates to family legacy because I was telling Louise you had not only grandparents, but you had parents, and you had children. You had parents who are parenting, but whose parents are still alive. And I just the the the word, so I felt like within her workshop, there could be three categories to address all three uh phases uh because um there's just a lack of communication. I mean, just in even having my children, I used to look forward to my son's father's day card because I know he would literally go through a I don't know how many cards to find the exact words that he wanted to say, but it was the only moment I had where I could hear and feel my son. Because as parents, you don't get any accolades. Nobody's telling you, hey, you did a great job today, man. I saw you work all day, come home and cook food, and you don't get any of that. So when you get any type of applause from your children, you know, and I just I saw that there's there's not enough uh communication, man. I needed to get that, but it's okay. Uh-huh. That's the town calling me about that. But anyhow, um, I just feel like there's not enough communication where there could be more healing. And I I felt like going forward, obviously Louise has to pray about that, but if she's going to do more speaking engagements, I think there's there's enough for every phase to be blessed to enhance the communication level.

SPEAKER_01:

The ones I talked about before um when I was there, and and basically it was love letters to my grandkids. You know, as grandparents, we have so much to teach our grandkids. There's so many values that we have that they don't, that they have not, their parents work so hard to do everything. And and in the 80s and early 90s, everyone bought into the new bigger, better, more. And there's only 24 hours in a day, and you didn't still need to sleep, and you still need to work 40, 50 hours a week, and there wasn't much time for kids. So values sadly got shifted to the side. So most of the kids don't have those values, but grandparents do. And and grandchildren love to hear the stories.

SPEAKER_04:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

You know, given in a positive life, they love to hear the stories about you know us growing up, and because I'm a grandparent now, of me growing up, and the Bill tells the stories of of how he lived on the Jersey Shore and all the things that he did. Um, so and within that, there's values, and we need to share that with our grandkids. And and they do want to hear. And I was just telling a couple of stories. I know um one of my friends, what she does is, and I thought it was it was absolutely brilliant. She gets a card and writes in it, ships it off to her kids, but keeps a copy for herself. Okay, puts it in a file with the child's name. Now, what is that gonna do? Really nothing until she's gone. And then the kids get to go through all her stuff. And in that, see a card with mom's handwriting of when I was 20, when I was 21, 22, 23, every single year. That's gonna be amazing to them. The tears that are gonna be there, the impact is amazing. And and this is something that we could actually do because the we want that impact to be there. I know I was in a store not too long ago at Walmart, and this woman brought out this tattered sheet of paper. And like I'm looking at it, and it was a shopping list: bread, eggs, milk. She said, This is all I have of my mother. This is all I have left. Do you know how much that meant to? I mean, what do you say after that? You know how much that meant to her? That is a love letter. It doesn't have to be long or big, it just has to be something that has meaning, and that's the legacy that we're giving.

SPEAKER_02:

You know what I what I love about this is, and I've I've thought about this a lot recently. My dad's been gone for quite a long time, and I miss him, I miss the stories he used to tell. And what I love about this is that it's documented somewhere so you can go back and read it. Even just a little thing, and I get it about the cards because I've kept all the cards. And recently I looked at some of those, and it it meant so much to me that not only did my mom um sign a birthday card, but it my dad signed it too in his handwriting. And something so small like that means the world to me. That if I had, you know, some letters or so, my my mom is is more into that. She's has written some things that I I I have been able to hold on to, but I wish I had that from my dad.

SPEAKER_04:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

It really you you don't realize the values that are in there. And I and I know that you guys don't have kids, but you've got nieces and you've got friends who have kids who love to hear the stories because you're like grandparents to them. And they love to hear the stories, and that will bring values. And at some point in time, something you say is going to connect with them, and that value is going to stick with them forever. Okay. But this was really done by divine inspiration. I really, you know, I wasn't sure if this was just me or was this God. And the conclusion I came to was this program, the love letters, is from God.

SPEAKER_02:

You know, to circle back to what um how we kind of opened with uh talking to to Minister Mike about um, you know, the the fellowship and the and the the um development of ideas that we're given. This is really why the body of Christ works together so well. Absolutely. Because you are coming, I I almost feel, folks, that you're listening to the further development of this whole program and how not only can it be um brought to churches, but how churches can take that and continue it with what Mike wants to do with his church. What I also love about this too is you mentioned um uh Louise that the fact that we don't have kids, there is another element to this, you know, not just the the grandparents and the parents, but the close friends. There are people, we've had this conversation, there are people in my life that are not blood relatives, but they are we are sisters in Christ, and we are literally aunts and uncles to their children, you know, and so there's an element sometimes when I miss that, but that having that, God has brought these people into our lives. So these this is another aspect, another, if you would say, audience that you can speak to that that maybe don't have children of their own, but have the opportunity to influence in Christ.

SPEAKER_01:

And I really believe that who you're being when you're with those kids, that's why they love you. They they see who you are, and some of them are gonna attach that value, whether it's patience or just your your love of the that child, or maybe just playing a game with them, just being with them. They're gonna attach that value because who you are has meaning to them.

SPEAKER_03:

Hey Mike, uh as far as um the seat that you're in, you get you have an opportunity to see a great deal of brokenness in families. Like I mean, going back generations, you know, and uh you think something like this could potentially help heal some of the I mean, because I'm thinking of just some of the folks we know, we grew up with, you know what I mean? Like, wow.

SPEAKER_05:

Yeah, this this is why um I was sharing, and I I think if you when you listen to Louise, her passion and the foundation of the vision is for grandparents, and I think she's gonna do a lot of isolated work with that, but I found that even afterwards, when people were coming up to her, there were multiple situations like you and Katie. It's different than the actual grandparent predicament. And Louise had something immediately, she had a response for every question, every concern. So I just feel like as she moves forward to tailor it uh on multiple platforms, you know what I mean? Um, it's gonna be real helpful. But for me, I see this as a real benefit. Um, and again, I I like that word commute communication because that is gonna be a part of that legacy. Um, you know, again, me personally thanking my mother. My mother saved my life to just process, okay, how awesome would that have been just to sit down with her and say, Mom, or write her a letter. You know, because again, I was telling Louise what I'm getting out of it is the then and the now. Okay, the the now is the legacy, but the then is the needed communication for now, for healing. And I think there's a whole lot that the Holy Spirit can use in the then as well. And again, it was just so awesome. I mean, my man, man, I just took off listening to her and just processing this. I think it can be a tremendous blessing. And it can be a tool also with when we talk about reaching the heart of Christ. What is that? When we have to forgive, we have to humble ourselves. You know, it's it's weakness to the flesh, but it's empowerment to the spirit. Right. And I do I think this is another tool that can be used to enhance forgiveness, you know. Um, you know what I mean?

SPEAKER_01:

So you can say you forgave that person, but did you really? You know, it's because it's an active, I actively do it. And and so the love letter allows you to do that, to get it all out there, and then say, okay, I forgive you. And now let me tell you the positive things you've put in my life to make me who I am now. I wouldn't have been who I was I am now if it weren't for you. If it weren't for the things that you did to make me who I am today, I am great today because of you. You take that negative and you make it a positive because that's who you are. And and it works, it's all God.

SPEAKER_05:

Ted and Katie, you can relate to people when they come to you and they're overwhelmed. And the first thing I do is I say, okay, we got a big fire, but if you take one log out of that fire at a time, it's not that bad. You're you're just staring at all the logs at one time, you know. And to me, this family legacy, this communication, this expression, uh, the expression of feelings. And man, I'm telling you, it's supernatural, it's going to pull logs out of the fire. You know, I just see relief, I see healing, I see so much in it.

SPEAKER_01:

And then the family can come together as a family moving forward because you can say, okay, my daughter, my son, my grandchildren, this is who we are as a family.

SPEAKER_05:

Yes.

SPEAKER_01:

This is who we are as a family moving forward. These are the values that all of us decided that this is who we are. We're loving, we're kind, we're generous. This is who we are as a family moving forward. How do we create that legacy moving forward for our grandkids' kids? How do we do that? How do we stay together? And you're right, it's all about that communication. How do we communicate with each other? When you're mad at me, I want you to tell me you're mad at me. And I want to communicate with you. I want, I want that loving relationship. And this is how we're gonna do it.

SPEAKER_03:

You know, the enemy has been very successful in attacking the family.

SPEAKER_05:

Yes, he has.

SPEAKER_03:

Uh, he's been assaulting the family, and this this sounds uh very intriguing and interesting. I'm just trying to imagine if I if I got a letter from my grandpop who I met when I was two months old, three months. I think he passed when I was three months old, something like that. But if I got like a letter from I that would be, you know, I've only known stories from my uncles about him.

SPEAKER_05:

Right, right.

SPEAKER_03:

You know, my on my dad's side. I I knew my mom's uh pop, but I didn't know Freddie Fred's pop, my dad's pop. Uh I didn't get to know him. I met him, but I never really got a chance to know him. That would that I'm just trying to process that. Like if I got a letter, you know, just sharing different things. That would be that would be wild.

SPEAKER_01:

Just yeah, just sharing life, just sharing about, you know, what's going on. You can see the values within the letter.

SPEAKER_03:

I think also uh, you know, for somebody who maybe is not walking with the Lord but was raised in a believing family, to get a letter from a like if I got a letter from my grandpa that talked about his walk with Christ and the word of God in his life and stuff like that, I would just be I'd be blown away. And so it how mu how important is is faith as far as in the in this letter type thing you would write, how important is faith in your communication to your family members? Would you mention faith?

SPEAKER_01:

It would be I I would I would a hundred percent. My faith is extremely important to me. I mean, without without my faith, I have nothing. I couldn't do anything without faith. My faith in Christ is everything. I mean, I remember wasn't when I wasn't walking with the Lord, how empty my life was. You know, I didn't have that guidance. I didn't have you know my brothers and sisters in Christ to to help guide me when I go off the rail sometimes. Um it's it's extremely important.

SPEAKER_02:

I think how this all is incorporated in Christ too is you know, um in uh second Corinthians, where are we? Second Corinthians uh chapter one, verse three. I just praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, that we can conform so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves receive from God. And I always say that that our hearts are for someone else's healing.

SPEAKER_05:

That's right.

SPEAKER_02:

And if we through through something like this, the love letters, if we can teach the next generation that same thing, that will continue to snowball in Christ. And that's that's what happens, like all these stories, and and especially in today's culture, when they keep leaving out the God factor, then these generations that are growing up don't know the true facts, and that's why I see this as such a benefit, but constantly referring back and pointing to Christ because this is what this generation needs.

SPEAKER_05:

Yes, my great-grandfather back in 1909 started a prayer group, and you know, uh they he believed God, he had seen God uh help his father build a church. Um, the actual uh the uh slave master was a Christian man and and took the African Americans, you know, African Americans couldn't go to church unless the slave master took them. So after the masturbation process, uh this white slave master helped them build their first church.

SPEAKER_03:

Wow.

SPEAKER_05:

Became the deacon in their church.

SPEAKER_03:

Come on.

SPEAKER_05:

So he saw that miracle. So when he came up to Jersey at the worst of time, they started praying because they had already witnessed the move of God. So that that that empowered him to trust God through the process of you know uh establishing Shiloh Baptist Church, which I talk about all the time. You know what I mean? So yeah, but it was my grandfather on my mother's side who really was my spiritual inspiration. And actually, we just buried my cousin Kelsey, and the Holy Spirit led me to talk about the faith of my grand, our grandfather Junior Morton. So the eulogy was all surrounded by my grandfather junior morton. So I got it on both ends, the Mortons and the Morgans, with here with Shiloh Baptist Church.

SPEAKER_03:

You basically have love letters in a sense from the stories and their lives, the legacy of their lives. And you're uh you're you're ministering in the church. Uh that's kind of like a a brick and mortar uh legacy letter from uh great-grandpops.

SPEAKER_05:

Amazing.

SPEAKER_03:

How cool is it to know that great-grandpops had prayed over yes, not just the property, but the family and you know it's documented.

SPEAKER_02:

It's actually documented.

SPEAKER_03:

And so that's kind of in a in a very strange way. That's that's kind of what's Louise is talking about here to a certain extent, like some kind of legacy where you can you can continue ministering.

SPEAKER_02:

Tangible.

SPEAKER_03:

Tangible when you're when you're gone. I I really like the idea. I would love to write my uh my niece something.

SPEAKER_01:

You know what, Pastor Mike, what values do you think you got from your grandfather?

SPEAKER_05:

Well, I I think the key is that God opened my eyes to be able to see it. You know what I mean? Um, and I think a lot of us are blocked, you know, we have we're we're we're we're connected to different bondages that prevent us from seeing. And uh for me to, you know, at 20 years old to be able to walk through these doors, because it was all I knew growing up, a lost 20-year-old. And that's when the appreciation for my great-grandfather really kicked in. You know what I mean? Because had he not had the vision and the and the and the drive to accomplish what God did through him, you know, who knows where my life had gone.

SPEAKER_03:

Amen. Amen. Well, thank you very much, Louise Cole and Reverend Mike Morgan from Shiloh Baptist. And Louise Coles from Calvary Southport in North Carolina. And so we're gonna meet again next week. God will continue on our Northeast tour. So the Lord bless you and keep you, the Lord make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you, the Lord lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace.

SPEAKER_00:

This program was made possible by the Playson Word family of supporters. To find out more, check out our website at playsonword.org.

People on this episode

Head Shot

Fred David Kenney, Jr.

Host